


Lost and Found

by remembertowrite



Category: Tanis (Podcast), The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Adventure, Cults, F/M, Gen, Gen Work, Kidnapping, M/M, Missing Persons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-15 05:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7209299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remembertowrite/pseuds/remembertowrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What starts as a typical workday for Nic Silver turns into a race against time to find his missing best friend.</p><p>Set a few days after Black Tapes 207, "Personal Possessions."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lovely, Dark, & Deep

Nic collapsed into his couch, hands running across the brown fabric of the armrest, matted down from nights and nights of restlessness reading until he passed out in the early hours of the morning. He thumbed the peeling edge of his beer label, absently noting the clammy dampness of condensation, and dropped his head all the way back to take in the shadows of the ceiling.

His life was a balancing act, trying to reign in Alex and fight away his own madness, seeking solace in warmth of Amalia’s skin and the way she almost purred for him as they tangled together in sheets.

A casual relationship on the surface, but their waters ran deep—she’d ask to move in two weeks after returning from Russia, and he’d _seen_ it, the briefest glimpse of a future he’d been too scared to craft into words. He’d at once shoved it away, tucked tight into some rolling papers and set on fire until he breathed it in and out of his lungs in an act of rebaptism, a cleaning of the slate, a renewal of the faith: a simple joy in the depth and breadth of the universe.

Anyway, Amalia was long gone after he’d posted the newest episode of The Black Tapes. Alex had a real talent in destroying her friends’ personal lives, he mused.

Nic let out a long sigh and swigged a gulp of microbrew, a local Seattle craft ale he had a particular fondness for, more for the significant anonymity of the brewer than its mediocre flavor.

His phone beeped, shattering the still glass of the moment. The device chirped in delight as it announced the arrival of a new text.

Nic set down his beer and checked the phone screen. MK.

He unlocked his phone, relinquishing the sweet tang of the self-pity of the newly dumped.

_New foot washed up. Metchosin, BC. Size 11, men’s, wearing trail running shoe. Police haven’t analyzed DNA yet, so no checking against fed databases._

Nic leaned forward, curiosity piqued. He made a mental note to send Cameron Ellis an email the next morning inquiring about any connections between his “anomalous phenomena” and the disembodied foot.

 _Already in my email? Can you read the info out loud? Better for audience_ , Nic typed out.

_Was going to call tm morning bc you’re prob all depressed & shit but yeah whatever your $$_

Nic started, dismissing MK’s affinity for acronyms in favor of the content of her message.

 _Wait what?_ he sent back.

_You got dumped pretty fuckin’ hard, right? Rough, buddy._

Nic choked on his own spit, a deep red blush rushing across his cheeks.

“How did you—” he stammered to the empty room, when his phone alerted him to a new MK text carrying a 110% guarantee of further embarrassment.

_You really want to know how I know? Put some tape over your webcam, dumbass._

Nic closed his text inbox and jabbed his fingertip on the Skype app, placing a video call to MK. She answered, her feigned boredom a poor mask of her amused smirk.

“You-you hacked my _webcam_?” Nic sputtered.

MK rolled her eyes.

“I don’t ‘hack’ anything,” she responded, accentuating her distaste of the word _hack_ with finger quotes.

“But how?”

MK let out a long sigh. “I always forget you’re shit with literally anything tech-related. Anyway, does this call have a point or are you just going to scold me?”

“I’m taking the battery out of my phone and laptop from now on.”

“Well that’s a stupid decision. Besides, I hear there’s good money in camshows.”

Nic flushed more than he’d initially realized was possible.

“Sometimes I wish I could just live off the grid.”

“I bet you’d _love_ that, living as a freak hermit communing with nature or some shit.”

Nic stroked his chin in mock contemplation, the short stubble of a day without shaving scratching his fingertips, and MK snorted. “Yeah, because that’s so much better than deigning to live in civilization where you get to, you know, actually talk to your friends and family.”

“I can see the appeal of it.”

“Yeah, whatever. Ciao.”

The sad downward glissando marking the end of a Skype call thrust Nic’s living room back into quiet. He stood staring at his phone for a few seconds until Nessie let out a long snore and shifted around on her dog bed.

He smiled and grimaced and wanted to sob; a freak hermit indeed, craving for woods lovely, dark, and deep—and terrifying.

###

Nic wiped the sweat from his forehead, jostling his helmet as he guided his bike over to the rack. He hefted a lock out of his backpack and chained up the single-speed next to his cousin’s dark blue fixed-gear. He wondered if he was running late—he and Terry usually showed up at the office around the same time.

He entered the PNWS office, a rented space occupying half of the second floor of a nondescript brick building in West Seattle. The space had transformed from the cruddy public radio office PNWS had inhabited before relaunching as a podcast network and moving into the current office. Nic found it homier, with bookshelves stretching along the walls and the warm amber hardwood reminding him of his childhood home.

He settled down at his desk and opened his laptop, scanning through his email. Nic found a file transfer from MK with more information on the foot found in British Columbia yesterday and a few notifications from Skype about new voicemails from listeners. Nothing from Alex about scheduling Tanis narration for that afternoon, which was weird.

Nic rose out of his seat and meandered through the halls of the office, past the general newsroom with two interns manning the phones, towards Alex’s office. The door hung ajar, the lights turned off.  Nic noted how Alex had stacked papers haphazardly on the edge of her desk, with other files strewn over a stack of banker’s boxes lining the back office wall. Weird. Alex wasn’t usually late. Her passion for the story had consumed her; often he found his friend and coworker hunched over her computer in the mornings, always there before he arrived.

The landline on Alex’s desk broke the quiet with the shrill tones of office phone ringtone. It rang three more times, and Nic succumbed to the clawing need to answer the call rather than let it go to voicemail.

If Alex were here, she’d have poked fun about his quintessential Canadian-ness.

“Hello?” Nic spoke into Alex’s phone receiver, fumbling with the cord in the dark of the office.

“Oh, you. Isn’t this Alex’s line?”

Nic cringed at Strand’s curt tone.

“Yeah, she’s not in yet.”

“She’s not answering her mobile. Tell her to call me when she gets in.”

“Yeah, sure—”

But the good doctor exercised that tact he was so well regarded for and hung up before Nic could finish his sentence. What was it with people and hanging up before the ends of conversations?

He felt rather than heard MK’s sniggers in the back of his mind.

Nic dialed Alex’s cell number from her desk phone.

“Hi, you’ve reached Alex Reagan,” her voicemail greeting stated. “I’m unable to answer your call, so please leave your name and number after the beep. If it’s urgent, please contact me at work or my producer Nic Silver at 1-800-TAAANIS.”

Oh, Alex was going to _pay for that_.

“Hey Alex, this is your work phone, but it’s me, Nic, it’s not you calling yourself, obviously—um, never mind, look, can you call my cell and let me know where you are? You’re not usually this—”

The phone beeped. “Message recorded,” a Siri-like voice chirped, and the line disconnected.

Nic returned to his desk to work and an hour passed. Dr. Strand called Nic’s line and sounded displeased. It was Strand’s default, and only, emotional state. Nic had heard what sounded like laughter in Alex’s audio recordings, but Strand had always had the same attitude towards Nic, best described as “stick up his ass.” MK’s words, not his.

As lunchtime approached, Nic swung by Alex’s office again, but the lights remained untouched. A sharp pain stung in the pit of Nic’s stomach, accompanied by a sense of urgency and the feeling like he needed to puke. It was a sense of acute wrongness, a blurring around the edges of his vision and a sour smell of rotted earth.

Where _was_ Alex?

He rushed back to his desk, grabbing his messenger bag before making his way to the bike rack. Nic’s shaking hands bumped his key off the lip of the keyhole, and he had to steady himself before he successfully heard the clicking of the unlocked chain.

He tore through the Seattle streets, unable to hear anything other than the grinding of the bike chain and his own hyperventilation. Flying through a red light made him wince at his infringement of traffic laws, but he excused it as a necessary evil in the course of an emergency.

Nic arrived at Alex’s apartment building and left his bike unceremoniously leaned against the railing of the front steps. He jabbed the buzzer once but didn’t wait to unlock the front door and hurl himself into the foyer. He braced himself with a hand on the wall as a sensation of dizziness overtook him.

Where _was_ Alex?

He dragged himself up the three flights of stairs to number 402, but didn’t need to fumble with his keys to enter Alex’s apartment. Her door stood apathetically cracked open, the light of the hallway casting a sliver of yellow across the dark entryway of her apartment. Nic shoved the door open and skirted around the empty two-bedroom, praying to whatever deities might be listening that Alex had just overslept for once.

He found her bedside lamp overturned in her bedroom. Her purse laid like an animal carcass on her bed, its innards of makeup and gum wrappers and loose earbuds splayed across the untouched comforter.

It was the little handheld recorder sitting innocently on Alex’s nightstand, though, that gave Nic heart palpitations. She’d never leave that behind.

He sat down on Alex’s bed and dropped his forehead into his hands.

She was gone.


	2. Promises to Keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which MK gets a lead on Alex, Strand wants answers, and Nic falls into danger.

“I was able to ‘borrow’ SPD’s license plate logging tech and picked up Alex’s car on a traffic cam around 5:30 yesterday morning in Loyal Heights. She was on Northwest 65th heading towards the water.”

Nic frowned, rubbing his temples. He felt like he existed in a permanent state of grogginess. He’d spent the previous day’s afternoon and early evening in the local precinct answering questions about Alex’s disappearance. No, she wasn’t answering her phone. No, she didn’t have travel plans that week. No, she wasn’t the type to just take off. No, she didn’t have a boyfriend who might have wanted to hurt her. Yes, she was _missing_ and she was his friend and she was just gone.

“Nic?”

Nic heard tapping and looked up to find MK flicking her webcam screen.

“Heading towards the water?” he parroted back, unable to process MK’s words further.

“Yeah, that’s the last traffic cam hit. Her credit card was used to pay for parking at a marina in the same area, Shilshole Bay. There’s over a thousand boats moored there, sailboats and uber-yachts and shit.”

Nic let out a long exhale. There was a trail. The police would find Alex.

“Okay, but there’s more. I checked out the marina’s security footage, and at 5:44am, there are two creepy ass dudes in hooded robes rushing what looks like a woman onto a motor boat.”

“Alex?”

“Well, the footage isn’t exactly 1080p, but I’d put my money on it.”

“Okay.” He felt like he was floating through his day, like he’d spent too many hours binge watching back-to-back conspiracy documentaries on Netflix.

“And Nic?” MK’s voice softened to an awkward tinny pitch that felt uncharacteristic coming from her. “I hope they find her.”

“Thanks.”

“Keep your phone on. I’ll text if I hear anything more.”

MK hung up. Nic closed out of the program on his laptop and absently swished his now cold tea around in its mug. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder and turned back to take in the concerned face of his shaggy-haired cousin.

“Hey cuz. You look like shit.”

Nic laughed at Terry’s friendly ribbing, but his amusement faded quickly.

“Why don’t you take the rest of the day?” Terry suggested.

Nic nodded, his lips pressed together in a thin line. He felt so useless, but he was too stuck in his head to get anything done.

“They’ll find her.”

“Yeah.”

He packed up his things, clicking the laptop shut in a note of defeat, and tucked it into his messenger bag. He took the stairs instead of the elevator to clear his head, and made for the parking lot—he’d driven in today.

Nic pushed open the door and ambled towards his car, taking his time to soak in the weak sunlight peeking out behind the thunderheads. Rain later, probably.

He’d pulled open his messenger bag to dig for his keys when he felt the sharp edge of a knife blade against his neck, the cold sting of metal promising to make the world turn red.

“Step back from the car.”

Nic’s heartbeat increased dramatically in tempo; he heard it pounding in his head, the _bum-bum_ echoing over a high-pitched ringing in his ears. He pulled slowly backwards, catching a glimpse of a burly-looking 20-something in his peripherals. An accomplice. He’d seen that man somewhere before.

“Navigator,” a deep voice hissed into his ear.

“W-what?” Nic stuttered. His messenger bag swung in agitation; he realized he was vibrating with the terror of a field mouse in the eye of a falcon.

“The Navigator knows the way.”

“I don’t understand,” Nic pleaded.

“Show us the way,” the man behind him demanded. The knife trembled in the man's hands; Nic could feel it started to cut into his skin.

“What do you want from me?” Nic mumbled, unable to control the shaking of his hands.

The accomplice to his side spoke for the first time: “Time’s running out. The unholy medium is already on her way.”

“I don’t know what you want, but I can’t help you,” Nic forced out, turning his head slightly to catch a glimpse of the accomplice.

“There are wondrous things. There are magical things,” the assailant at his back started chanting.

“She’s almost there,” the accomplice, the one to Nic’s left, pressed. “The end of all things is imminent.” At once Nic was able to place him: The man had tailed him down the I-5 to Olympia three weeks ago, an unsubtle attempt to remain incognito in a huge motor home.

“There are _dangerous things_ ,” the cultist behind Nic threatened, pressing the knife blade further into Nic’s neck so he felt a sudden sting of agony and a wet gushing _something_ soaking his shirt collar. He moaned in pain and closed his eyes.

“We get what we deserve,” a third voice quipped. Nic’s body was thrashed to the ground; he braced himself with his hands on instinct and felt the bruising impact of gravelly asphalt on his palms.

Over the blinding pain in his hands and neck, Nic heard the shuffle of tennis shoes on asphalt, the sickening crunch of a fist making impact with a nose, the clattering of something metal on the parking lot blacktop.

“ _Fuck_ ,” shouted the voice Nic recognized as belonging to the man who’d sliced open his neck. The man’s swear word rang out curt and sharp against the fading pitter-patter of fleeing feet.

Nic pulled himself into a sitting position, holding one aching hand against the cut on the base of his neck. Blood had run down the shoulder of his shirt, staining the blue button-up a dark purple.

“Hey buddy, you okay?”

Nic glanced upward to take in the towering frame of Geoff van Sant, all six feet of him radiating imposing soldier until he broke into a lopsided smile. Geoff stretched a hand out to Nic and hauled him up; Nic barely reached Geoff’s shoulders at full height. That, or he was struggling to stand up straight. He felt woozy.

Geoff caught Nic by the shoulder that wasn’t soaked with blood.

“Shit, man, that looks nasty. You need to get to the ER.”

Geoff tore at his shirt sleeve, wadding up the cotton and pressing it onto Nic’s neck to stymie the bleeding. Nic reached around to hold the makeshift bandage himself. It bandage was soaking through. It felt like some had smashed a dozen eggs on his back.

He grimaced and dropped his car keys into Geoff’s hand.

“Thanks,” Nic croaked.

“Totally,” Geoff responded, guiding Nic towards the dusty Volvo.

Nic grinned weakly at Geoff. “ ‘We get what we deserve’?”

Geoff sent him a sheepish look that quickly darkened as he surveyed Nic’s blood-soaked shirt.

“There are dangerous things, Nic.”

###

“Hey, have a beer,” Geoff offered, handing Nic a cold bottle coated with condensation. Nic accepted with a smile as Geoff joined him on the couch.

They’d spent hours in the ER, until he’d been released and told to take it easy for the next few weeks. Doctor’s orders.

He supposed sitting on the couch drinking beer was Geoff’s version of “taking it easy.” Nic absently rubbed Nessie’s head—she’d curled up next to him on the couch, her head resting on his thigh.

“Thanks for today,” Nic said, turning towards his guest. “For, well, you know.”

Geoff laughed in his Geoff way, mouth wide and teeth bared like a German Sheppard barking in happy agreement with its master.

“Damn straight. I saved your ass.”

Nic’s phone chirped on the coffee table, and he reached for it immediately. Alex was still missing, and MK had been texting updates every few hours—really just more of nothing, but he appreciated the effort.

“Still no update?” Geoff asked, concern marring his normally relaxed expression.

Nic checked his phone. A string of texts tweeted into his inbox.

_Hit on Alex’s phone. Her device pinged few cell towers in area of Sooke, BC two hours ago._

_Might still be in boat—heading towards ocean?_

_This whole thing is giving off the sketchiest vibe, Nic._

“She was near the Canadian border this afternoon,” Nic told Geoff.

“You’re thinkin’ you know where she is?”

The phone started ringing again, but with an incoming call.

“I should take this.”

“Sure,” Geoff obliged.

Nic answered the call. Dr. Strand spoke, instead of the information specialist he’d expected.

“You have a lead,” Strand’s deep voice cut across the phone line, clipped and terse as usual.

Nic’s brow furrowed. For a paranormal skeptic, Dr. Strand sure assumed others could read his mind.

“What?”

“Alex,” Strand said after an exhale that Nic took to indicate annoyance.

“She’s missing,” Nic replied.

“I’m _aware_. The group that took her. You were targeted as well.”

“I, uh. Yeah. I’m not exactly sure it was the same people.”

“A podcast host goes missing, and her coworker and counterpart on a similar podcast is attacked within thirty-six hours. It’s the logical conclusion.” Strand paused, and when he spoke again, Nic noted the tonal shift to disapproving authoritarian that Strand took with Alex sometimes (and with Nic often).

“Come speak with Detective Barnes. This attack is the best lead he has. Your inaction isn’t helping.”

Resting wounded on his couch, drinking beer and petting his dog, Nic suddenly felt a pang of uselessness. He watched as Geoff took a long swig of his beer, finishing off the bottle, and raised his eyebrows at Nic.

“Well, um, I don’t really think that’s the best lead. Alex is in British Columbia. Uh, at least her phone is.”

Strand hesitated for a moment. “You know where she is?”

“I have a friend who’s sending updates to the SPD,” Nic responded.

“Nic”—and he could hear the desperation, the fear of another loss in the ferocity of Strand’s tone—“that’s not enough.”

At this point, Geoff grabbed Nic’s hand and wrenched the phone away from his ear. Strand kept talking, but only Nessie heard his pleas. The dog snapped at Nic’s phone, perturbed by the volume of Strand’s angry voice echoing against her ear.

“Nic, we can _find_ her,” Geoff said. He stared intently at Nic, his fingers curling around Nic’s own.

“What?”

“I used to be Spec Ops. Pakistan. I tracked people.” Geoff’s body language was intense, like he’d switched back into soldier mode. Civilian Geoff might as well have been a different person.

Nic wrested his hand, still clutching his cell phone, out of Geoff’s tight grip.

“He’s right. It’s not enough.” Geoff nodded to Nic’s phone. “We can find her, buddy.”

Nic took a deep breath. Nessie rubbed her snout into his thigh and whined about Strand’s muffled voice still coming from his phone.

“Yeah. Okay.” Nic pulled the phone back up to his ear. “I’m going to find her, Dr. Strand.”

He ended the call, enjoying the jolt of adrenaline from hanging up on Strand. He felt like he understood MK a little better.

Geoff grasped him by the shoulder in support: a soldier’s grip, a strength he could find some confidence in to fight off the uncertainty in his own racing heart.

“We’ll find her.”

(And this time, it felt true.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I make Nic a damsel in distress just so Geoff could swoop in, quip the last line of the Tanis chant, and save Nic? Possibly......

**Author's Note:**

> I can't claim credit for Nic's dog's name. That's all E_Salvatore (Eleanor-3 on Tumblr) :)


End file.
